Mead, Matthew-Mephibosheth
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THE AGES DIGITAL LIBRARY REFERENCE CYCLOPEDIA of BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL and ECCLESIASTICAL LITERATURE Mead, Matthew - Mephibosheth by James Strong & John McClintock To the Students of the Words, Works and Ways of God: Welcome to the AGES Digital Library. We trust your experience with this and other volumes in the Library fulfills our motto and vision which is our commitment to you: MAKING THE WORDS OF THE WISE AVAILABLE TO ALL — INEXPENSIVELY. AGES Software Rio, WI USA Version 1.0 © 2000 2 Mead, Matthew an English divine, was born in Buckinghamshire in 1629. Of his early history we know but little. He first came prominently into public notice during the Cromwellian movement. Mead identified himself with the cause of the Independents, and was appointed by the Protector to the living of Shadwell in 1658. Four years later he was ejected for nonconformity, and removed to Holland, in common with .many other ministers of that age. He became acquainted with the duke of Orange, and was greatly favored by him and the States. Afterwards he returned to England, and gathered about. him one of the largest congregations in London. He settled at Stepney as pastor of a dissenting congregation in 1674, and the community betokened their love and esteem for him by presenting him with building material for a new chapel. He died in 1699. Matthew Mead, whom his friend and associate, Howe (Funeral Sermon for Mead), describes as “that very reverend and most laborious servant of Chris,” was as indefatigable in Christian work as he was. amiable in spirit, and, in consequence of his mild temperament and the moderation of his opinions, formed the strongest personal link between the Presbyterians and Independents of England in the second half of the 17th century. Among his publications are, The Almost Christian, or seven sermons on <442628>Acts 26:28 (Loud. 1666, 8vo):-- The Almost Christian Discovered (1684, 4to; Glasgow, 1755, 12mo; with Essay by Dr. Young of Perth, Lond. 1825; 1849, 12mo):-Life and Death of Nathaniel Mather (1689, 8vo):-Vision of the Wheels sermon on <261013>Ezekiel 10:13 (1689, 4to). See Calamy, Nonconformists; Skeats, Hist. of the Free Churches of England, p. 167 Allibone, Dict. of Brit. and Amer. Auth. 2:1257. Mead, Richard a distinguished English physician, who was born at Stepney in 1673, and after studying at the most eminent medical schools on the Continent, returned and settled in England, and became one of the most celebrated practitioners of his time, wrote a treatise on the diseases mentioned in Scripture, entitled Medicina Sacra, seu de morbis insignioribus qui in Biblis memorantur (Lond. 1749, 8vo; republished at Amsterdam, 1749, 8vo). A translation of this work was made by Dr. T. Stark, and was published with a memoir of the author (Lond. 1755, 8vo). Dr. Mead died in 1754. See Alliboue, Dict. Brit. and Amer. Biog. s.v. 3 Mead, Stith an early Methodist Episcopal minister, was born in Bedford County, Va., Sept. 25, 1767; was converted in 1789, and feeling called of God to preach the Gospel, entered the itinerancy in 1793; was located in 1816; readmitted superannuate in 1827, and died in 1835. Mr. Mead was eminently useful as a preacher, and particularly conspicuous in the great revivals of his time, yet remembered in the Southern States. See Minutes of Conferences, 2:347. Mead Zechariah a clergyman of the Protestant Episcopal Church, was born at Greenwich, Conn., some time in the first half of our century (perhaps 1802), and was educated at Yale College (class of 1825). He was ordained priest at Norfolk, Va., May 22, 1831; became rector of Grace Church, Boston, Mass.; from 1837-1840 was editor of the Southern Churchman, published at Richmond, Va.; and died Nov. 27, 1840. See General Catal. of the Divinity School of Yale College, p. 7. Meade, William, D.D. a noted prelate of the Protestant Episcopal Church, was born at Millwood, Clarke County, Nov. 11, 1789, his father being Colossians Richard K. Meade, aide-de-camp to Genesis Washington, and was connected both by birth and marriage with some of the oldest and best families in Virginia. His great-grandfather was an Irish Romanist, who came to this country, married a Quakeress in Flushing, L. I., and removed to Virginia. His grandmother was a descendant of Richard Kidder, bishop of Bath and Wells. William was educated at Princeton College, N. J. (class of 1808); was ordained deacon by bishop Madison, Feb. 24,1811, in Williamsburg, Va.; and priest by bishop Claggett, in St. Paul’s Church, Alexandria. He commenced his ministry in his own native parish, Frederick (now Clarke) Comity, as assistant to the Revelation Alexander Balmaine; in the fall of 1811 he took charge of Christ Church, Alexandria. where he remained two years, when he returned to Millwood, and, on the death of Mr. Balmaine, became rector of that Church. In 1826 he was a candidate as assistant bishop in Pennsylvania, but failed by one vote of nomination by the clergy; and in the following year the Revelation H. U. Onderdonk, D.D., was elected. In 1823 he was elected assistant bishop to bishop Moore, and was consecrated Aug. 19, 1829, in St. James’s Church, Philadelphia, by bishops 4 White, Hobart, Griswold, Moore, Croes, Brownell, and H. U. Onderdonk. On the death of bishop Moore, Nov. 11, 1841, he became bishop of the diocese of Virginia. In this capacity he labored unceasingly, up to the hour of his death, March 14, 1862, for the good of evangelical Christianity. He advanced the interests of his Master’s cause not only in the pulpit, but in many and various ways he labored for the good of humanity. Several educational and missionary societies owe their origin to him, and the Theological School of Virginia, lately at Alexandria, was largely indebted to him for its existence (though the plan of a theological seminary in Virginia was not original with him). He gave to, this school of the prophets his personal care and labors, nearly to the close of his life. During the exciting days of 1861 bishop Meade made many fervent though futile efforts to save Virginia from the troubles of the impending civil war. He steadfastly opposed secession to the very last. Taken altogether, but few men in the nation have enjoyed the confidence of the people to a greater degree than did this honest ecclesiastic, who sought in more ways than one to serve his day and generation as a truly Christian man. For years before his death bishop Meade was the recognized head of the evangelical branch of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States. On bishop Meade’s ecclesiastical position, the Church Review (July, 1862) thus comments: “The gross worldliness, and even the .open immorality of many of the early clergy of Virginia; the moral-essay style of preaching which characterized many of the missionaries; the French infidelity introduced during the Revolution, and the absence of that bitter opposition to Church principles which was, and even now is waged in the Northern States, led the bishop to regard as not only mainly, but only important, the development of the subjective in religion. His ‘extraordinary will,’ as the Episcopal Recorder calls it, and his Calvinistic doctrines, led him to separate evangelical truth from apostolic order, and to make him, we doubt not an honest, but a most determined. opponent to any earnest presentation of the positive institutions of Christianity.” Bishop Meade was buried from St. Paul’s Church, Richmond, March 17. His principal published works. are, Family Prayer (1834):-Lectures on the Pastoral Office, and Lectures to Students (1849): -Old Churches and Families in Virginia (Philad. 1856, 2 vols. 8vo):-The Bible and the Classics (1861, 12mo). Besides these, he also published Memorials of [his] ‘Two Beloved Wives, which the Church Review informs us was suppressed. His controversial writings are numerous. See Life, by bishop Johns (Baltimore, 1868). (J.H.W.) 5 Meadow a term used in the A. V. as the translation of two Hebrews words, neither of which seems to have this meaning, although terms otherwise rendered doubtless have. SEE ABEL. 1. <014102>Genesis 41:2 and 18. Here the word in the original is Wja;h; (with the definite article), ha-Achu. It appears to be an Egyptian term, literally transferred into the Hebrew text, as it is also into that of the Alexandrian translators, who give it as’ tw~| &Acei. (This is the reading- of Codex A. Codex B, if we may accept the edition of Mai, has e[lov; so also the rendering of Aquila and Symmachus, and of Josephus [Ant. 2:5, 5]. Another version, quoted in the fragments of the Hexapla, attempts to reconcile sound and sense by o]cqh. The Veneto-Greek has leimw>n.) The same form is retained. by the Coptic version. Its use in <180811>Job 8:11(A.V. “flag”)-where it occurs as a parallel to gome (A.V. “rush”), a word used in <020203>Exodus 2:3 for the “bulrushes” of which Moses’s ark was composed- seems to show that it is not a “ meadow,” but some kind of reed or water plant. This the Sept. supports, both by rendering in. the latter passage bou>tomon, and also by introducing &Aci as the equivalent of the word rendered “paper reeds” in <231907>Isaiah 19:7. Jerome, in his commentary on the passage, also confirms this meaning. He states that he was informed by learned Egyptians that the word achi denoted in their tongue any green thing that grew in a marsh-omne quod in palude virens nascitur.